JDF (Job Definition Format) is an open, extensible, XML-based print workflow specification framework. It ties together authoring, production, management, manufacturing, delivery, and MIS (Management Information System) control. JDF provides product intent descriptions as a means to describe a final product—such as a business card—independent of the processing steps required to manufacture the product. JDF product intent is a formal product description. JDF describes the processing steps required for pre-press, print and post-press tasks via processes and resources. It consists of nodes representing each process step, as well as groups of nodes representing sequential or parallel processing steps. A node may represent an entire job, a product component, a group of processes, or a single process. JDF also consists of resources, which are the input and output of nodes (processes) such as PDF files, process parameters, and consumables.
Classifying a product description, provided by a customer of a print shop, into the vocabulary (ontology) of the print shop is typically performed in a completely ad-hoc manner. Product description formats, such as JDF product intent nodes, are intended to formalize the description of a product to make translation to a workflow easier. However, the use of formal product descriptions can make manual classification more difficult since a person is usually required to interpret the formal product description constructs visually, that is, by reading them. Since such constructs are not typically meant to be human-readable this can be a difficult task and prone to error. Known methods of classifying print product descriptions are therefore based on random or improvised approaches, which cannot reliably and accurately provide the most appropriate classification and which, therefore, result in inefficient and time consuming classification of the print product descriptions.
Therefore automated classification of formal product descriptions, such as JDF product intent nodes, is desirable. However, even in automated workflow systems that classify JDF product intent as a particular product type, adding new product types and the rules to classify product descriptions as the new product type is a manual process and it requires significant knowledge of the underlying rules-based system. This is a barrier when deploying this technology at customer sites since the customer is not an expert on the underlying rules-based classification system.
Based on the foregoing it is believed that a need exists for an improved method for automatically classifying print product descriptions into a product type utilizing a classification system. Additionally, a need exists for providing a methodology which enables print product descriptions to be effectively and rapidly incorporated into a system of classification.